Economic Armageddon? Republicans call sequester warnings hype
Published February 27, 2013
FoxNews.com
First there was the debt-ceiling crisis. Then the "fiscal cliff." Now it's the "sequester."
While Congress averted the first two crises, it looks like lawmakers do not have a way out of the automatic spending cuts poised to hit Friday -- at least not yet.
But are they really as bad as the Obama administration says?
Republican lawmakers, while acknowledging the whole situation is far from ideal, have increasingly come to the conclusion that, no, they're not.
"Most of the nation will wake up Friday morning and yawn," Rep. Tim Huelskamp, R-Kan., said.
Democratic officials have started to concede that the layoffs and other major effects from the sequester will not be felt for another month or so. "Nice of them to tell us now," an aide to House Speaker John Boehner quipped, in response to the recent assessments.
Further, it turns out the dollars-and-cents impact this year is not nearly what officials have been claiming. While officials typically say the cuts this year add up to $85 billion, the Congressional Budget Office estimates actual spending will only fall by $44 billion this year.
The $85 billion figure refers to "budget authority" -- or what the government can allocate this year, but actually spend over several years.
Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas, said Wednesday that the president is using the issue "to scare people in order to grow the size of government."
Even using the $85 billion figure, the cuts amount to just more than 2 percent of the total federal budget. Administration officials say, considering where the cuts will actually hit, non-defense budgets will face a 9 percent cut, while the Pentagon will face a 13 percent cut.
That's significant, but Republicans say the administration has -- or should be granted by Congress -- the authority to spread the cuts around in a way that is less damaging.
"It's absurd to think that the government cannot get by with a little more than a 2 percent reduction in spending when every working American had to figure out how to make do with 2 percent less in their paychecks just last month," Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell said Wednesday, referring to the recent expiration of a payroll tax cut for millions of Americans.
In a glimmer of how officials might be considering less-damaging ways of cutting their budgets, Transportation Security Administration chief John Pistole testified at a House hearing Wednesday that his agency would look at implementing a hiring freeze and cutting back overtime before furloughing workers.
The urgency, or lack thereof, can be underscored by the schedule of meetings. President Obama, returning from a trip to Virginia where he again pressured Republicans, has set up a meeting for Friday with the top four congressional leaders, in his first sitdown with Republicans this year.
Considering the deadline is Thursday at midnight, one congressional Republican questioned why the president was waiting until the end of the week.
"Either someone needs to buy the White House a calendar, or this is just a -- belated -- farce. They ought to at least pretend to try," the Republican told Fox News.
Fresh polling suggests the country is not in a unified panic over the cuts. A survey by the Pew Research Center and USA Today showed only a quarter of people are closely following the issue, though most said the impact on the economy would be negative -- and most agreed that tax increases should be on the table as part of any compromise, which is what Obama has demanded.
No matter how the cuts are implemented, the impact will be widespread. Roughly half will hit the Pentagon, which likely means furloughs for thousands of civilian workers and cutbacks elsewhere in the budget -- attracting the most attention has been a recent decision not to deploy an extra aircraft carrier to the Persian Gulf.
Practically every federal department has warned about the impact to their budgets, and to the public. The Department of Homeland Security has warned border security could be affected, and Immigration and Customs Enforcement has already started releasing illegal immigrants from local jails in Arizona while planning to monitor them.
The Transportation Department says FAA cutbacks will mean delays at the nation's biggest airports. The National Air Traffic Controllers Association warned Wednesday that runways could close, causing more delays, at those airports.
Further, unemployment checks are expected to drop by roughly 11 percent around the end of March.
Furloughs, though, are generally about a month away, because federal law requires the government to give advance notice. At that point, many federal workers will have to take a day off work per week without pay.
On the Senate floor, Democratic Leader Harry Reid said "these cuts will not take place in the next few days."
"But they're going to start real quickly," he said. "So, within a matter of weeks we're going to feel these cuts and feel them really, really painfully."
Democrats, though, are taking a risk -- betting that the cuts will be so painful and devastating that voters will rally to their side and pressure Republicans to accept a blend of tax hikes and spending cuts to replace the whole package.
Senior administration officials said as much Tuesday, predicting Republicans would cave on taxes, just as they did toward the end of the fiscal-crisis fight.
But House Republican leadership aides said that strategy is "wrong."
Unlike in the fiscal-crisis debate, they claimed the current law favors Republicans "because if nothing happens, spending cuts kick in."
McConnell reiterated Wednesday that he's "ready to work" with Democrats to pass a different package of cuts, but his office continued to reject Obama's call for new tax revenue through closing loopholes.
URGENT: The U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee, headed by none other than Vermont Democrat Sen. Patrick Leahy himself, votes TODAY on three blatant gun grabbing bills – S. 150, S. 54, S. 374 – and one 'feel good' spend your hard-earned dollars on a do-little interagency taskforce bill pretending to make our schools "safe" – S. 146!
You see, the conniving S. 54 Stop Illegal Trafficking in Firearms Act of 2013, was cleverly and stealthily introduced while America at large was deliberately distracted with the odious Feinstein gun control flashbang.
This WHOLE new front being waged on our Second Amendment rights is made the more laughable and ALARMING given the fact that Attorney General Eric Holder – ACCORDING TO THIS BILL – and all of his Department of Justice and Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) underlings SHOULD BE IN PRISON FOR 20 YEARS for their FAST AND FURIOUS and FEARLESS DISTRIBUTING gun-running schemes!
America, we didn't fall for one word of Obama's silly skeet-shooting "I have a profound respect for the traditions of hunting" public relations lie, just as we didn't fall for the Feinstein gun grab veil in the name of 'public safety.'
We MUST fight back before it is too late! While the gun prohibitionists try to sway the uninformed masses that We the People were only endowed with the Second Amendment to kill deer or turkeys or join Obama in his all-time favorite – SKEET SHOOTING – there is NO SPORTING OR HUNTING CAVEAT TO OUR CONSTITUTIONAL RIGHTS
attempts to "work around" prior bans.
If passed, the Feinstein disarmament bill will REQUIRE grandfathered weapons to be registered under the National Firearms Act, to include:
Obama's Pentagon has had well over 3 years to do the right thing about Fort Hood. Unless American patriots start shouting, it will NEVER happen!
While we all know that Barack Hussein Obama wouldn't publicly acknowledge a domestic act of jihad on his watch – not with an election down the road – but now the election is over and the 'anointed' one is still BLOCKING justice for the 14 MURDERED (including the unborn baby of one soldier who was pregnant) AND 32 WOUNDED VICTIMS!
Meanwhile, drone operators who remotely pilot the deadly craft fiddling with joysticks like gamers are now eligible for outgoing Defense Secretary Leon Panetta's shiny, new "Distinguished Warfare Medal" –the ninth highest ranking warfare award the Pentagon can bestow, above the Bronze Star and the Purple Heart and "earned" entirely from the rear for heroic efforts where the greatest risk is carpal tunnel or spilt coffee in their laps! By the way, these kids on the joysticks are ALSO earning Air Medals without ever deploying overseas!
Instead of honoring the SOLDIERS' lives lost, and supporting survivors of the shooting and their friends and family with needed combat benefits and recognition of their valor, the petty Campaigner-in-Chief Obama has chosen to ignore them in one of the ugliest political maneuvers of his remarkably selfish tenure in the Oval Office.
Sgt. Todd was also used as a stage prop in Barack Obama's 2010 State of the Union address. And then they, and all their comrades in arms at Fort Hood, were discarded.
Officialdom cannot get their story straight. Hasan's defense has all been hinging on his religious rights! His Muslim beard and his "right" not to shave has held up court proceedings for months. So are we dealing with Islamist fanaticism, or not?
"Based on all the facts, it is inconceivable to us that the DoD and Army continue to label this attack, 'workplace violence' in spite of all the evidence that clearly proves the Fort Hood shooting was an act of terror," they wrote.
